Opera On Your TV
Opera Software is one of the companies I admire the most. Back in the nineties, when the web 
browser titans were battling for dominance of Internet Explorer versus Netscape Navigator, hardly anyone could notice the alternative from Norway. Experts were saying there was no place for a third, small player on the internet browser market. How times have changed! Now we have Google - backed FireFox that has taken the Microsoft market share by storm, riding the wave of Redmond's fatal mistakes. FireFox has taken hearts of Microsoft community, promising good security and good features (like tabs, convenient zooming and RSS). In the meantime Opera has been working hard, below many of the big boy's radars, developing extremely polished web browser and extremely successful strategy.
Opera has been the first to notice and understand the mobile phenomenon. While Microsoft has had troubles delivering a decent browser on their own Windows Mobile platform, Opera offers us a galaxy of choices for almost every mobile device. I used to use Opera on my previous smartphones (SonyEricsson P800 and P900). I have it installed on my 3G Nokia 6680. I'm waiting impatiently for the Windows Mobile 5 version of Opera to put on my i-mate SP5m music phone and on the JasJar Teleputer.
And now it looks like the smart Norwegians have been first to catch the IPTV wave. What draw my attention recently was the press release dated January 5th, 2006 "The Full Web and AJAX on a Chip for TV: The Opera browser is now pre-ported to Sigma's SMP8630 chipsets". The title itself says it all, but let me explain what the statement means.
I' wont explain here what the Full Web means. You should know TV as well :). The important words, however are AJAX and Sigma SMP8630.
AJAX means Asynchronous JavaScript And XML and is the state of the art technology being used to build and deliver Internet applications. The first full AJAX application has been Microsoft Outlook Web Access 2003, however somehow Microsoft has not been able to replicate the technology in other mainstream applications. The second, and extremely successful has been Gmail - Google's approach to email. Gmail has become extremely popular - as easy as the Web, but fast and responsive as any local application. After its success, Gmail has been followed by a galaxy of other applications, like Google Local and even Microsoft's Live.COM
Sigma SMP8630 is a chipset. A media processor, a building block for the next generation home entertainment devices. SMP8630 is considered being 6 to 12 months ahead of its competitors. That means most of the next generation set-top-boxes or Blue-Ray DVD players or HDTV (High Definition Television) receivers are built using this chipset. The Opera announcement means these devices will be internet ready. Isn't it natural being able to use your 50-inch LCD or plasma TV to browse the news or play Google Video On Demand? I just cannot wait to get one of these gadgets and hook to my VDSL line and enjoy the AJAX applications delivered in clarity and style on the Opera browser on the TV. In the meantime, go and download the Opera for your PC. You will feel the difference, I promise!
PS. Glenn - thank you for bringing Sigma to the table, and Piotr, thanks for reminding me about the Opera.
browser titans were battling for dominance of Internet Explorer versus Netscape Navigator, hardly anyone could notice the alternative from Norway. Experts were saying there was no place for a third, small player on the internet browser market. How times have changed! Now we have Google - backed FireFox that has taken the Microsoft market share by storm, riding the wave of Redmond's fatal mistakes. FireFox has taken hearts of Microsoft community, promising good security and good features (like tabs, convenient zooming and RSS). In the meantime Opera has been working hard, below many of the big boy's radars, developing extremely polished web browser and extremely successful strategy.Opera has been the first to notice and understand the mobile phenomenon. While Microsoft has had troubles delivering a decent browser on their own Windows Mobile platform, Opera offers us a galaxy of choices for almost every mobile device. I used to use Opera on my previous smartphones (SonyEricsson P800 and P900). I have it installed on my 3G Nokia 6680. I'm waiting impatiently for the Windows Mobile 5 version of Opera to put on my i-mate SP5m music phone and on the JasJar Teleputer.
And now it looks like the smart Norwegians have been first to catch the IPTV wave. What draw my attention recently was the press release dated January 5th, 2006 "The Full Web and AJAX on a Chip for TV: The Opera browser is now pre-ported to Sigma's SMP8630 chipsets". The title itself says it all, but let me explain what the statement means.
I' wont explain here what the Full Web means. You should know TV as well :). The important words, however are AJAX and Sigma SMP8630.
AJAX means Asynchronous JavaScript And XML and is the state of the art technology being used to build and deliver Internet applications. The first full AJAX application has been Microsoft Outlook Web Access 2003, however somehow Microsoft has not been able to replicate the technology in other mainstream applications. The second, and extremely successful has been Gmail - Google's approach to email. Gmail has become extremely popular - as easy as the Web, but fast and responsive as any local application. After its success, Gmail has been followed by a galaxy of other applications, like Google Local and even Microsoft's Live.COM
Sigma SMP8630 is a chipset. A media processor, a building block for the next generation home entertainment devices. SMP8630 is considered being 6 to 12 months ahead of its competitors. That means most of the next generation set-top-boxes or Blue-Ray DVD players or HDTV (High Definition Television) receivers are built using this chipset. The Opera announcement means these devices will be internet ready. Isn't it natural being able to use your 50-inch LCD or plasma TV to browse the news or play Google Video On Demand? I just cannot wait to get one of these gadgets and hook to my VDSL line and enjoy the AJAX applications delivered in clarity and style on the Opera browser on the TV. In the meantime, go and download the Opera for your PC. You will feel the difference, I promise!
PS. Glenn - thank you for bringing Sigma to the table, and Piotr, thanks for reminding me about the Opera.
MS did it first (actually not exactly this but MSN TV also brings Internet to big TV screens):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.webtv.com/pc/
:)
Yes, thanks for pointing that out. Actually I'm very excited about Sigma+Opera PR, since Opera seems to be ahead of Microsoft in platform reach and Sigma is way ahead as a next generation HDTV system-on-chip (including Microsoft's VC-1 HDTV decoder). Together they are able to deliver new breed of elegant home multimedia devices.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is important - Opera on Sigma promises to run AJAX :)
ReplyDelete